My back aches, I think I have strain from present wrapping. Busy weekend again, wonder what I forgot? Ah cr*p, christmas cards. One of those thursday-monday weekends, although some of it was spent at work ...

Thursday: storming Spy 51/Sidi Bou Said gig, playing the karaoke observer to tiny television people, long late-night talk over whisky and firelight.

Friday: Oxford street, Carnaby Street buying presents and decadent make-up from spike-haired ladyboys, then to Elle's haunted townhouse* for bitching and baby-wrangling, back to Oxford in time to impulsively go to the wrong gig (although it had its moments).

Saturday: Brownies at the bookshop, champagne at cloudhigh's, and giant glowing babies with a mystical space jellyfish moon on Broad Street (photos will follow). Then accidentally onto another gig and then home for some seriously overdue unconsciousness.

Sunday: quietly domestic in the house and garden, figuring out the mysteries of the pre-wash cycle, rescuing a lost little rose bush, wrapping presents, putting up the tree -- with a short break for a sit-down acoustic-y christmas gig with current favourite cartoon band The Family Machine and carols from Los Diablos (who by the end were just two rainbow-coloured jumpers away from godbothering).

Monday: Work, more shopping, work, more present wrapping (so... many... relatives...) and in the evening a slice of NY glamour from visiting supervillains Drs Jason Zerdin and Charvy Navain, complete with unexpected and welcome lift home**.

* According to Reality TV Sister, who claims a presence met her in the hall and wanted to "make itself known" to them; and that three more lurk in the first floor bathroom. Thank god she didn't make it to the top-floor bathroom, that's all I'm saying.

** With Laura the Poet, who agrees about the "improvements" in Borders; they're trying to wind up the community involvement thing, her group will be the last to go. She showed me the back way into the multistorey carpark, told me the dents on her car were the fault of a previous owner. "He was very careless, kept on crashing into things". Turns out she lives just round the corner from me, we'd seen each other but each had assumed the other was out of place. "Would you like to listen to a song with the sound of meteors in it"? she asked. Yes.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Today's timewasting: feeding "there is more fun" into google.

There is more fun just playing the game in burststhere is more fun – into effects. But I am not going therethere is more fun than it might seem, Poirot’s ears prick upthere is more fun here than anywhere else, for on Sundays the boys borrow any kind of craft there is more fun to be extracted out of the Floreador sectionthere is more fun for everyone in grades 7 through 12there is more fun waiting for you including camping, swimming, & float tripsThere is more fun in store! The jar can be taken inside to use as a bug-powered night light.There is more fun information about me and grapes on the 5 A Day Adventures CD-ROM

Ooooh, wound healing research. Tantalisingly brief description of the experiment that lead to the headline-friendly statement, "the stress caused by a 30-minute row with a spouse is enough to slow wound healing by a day".